Our future depends on proper management, truthful information, listening to citizens. Too long our city has been not what it should be.

We can change that by informed correct yes votes. Put our city back on the right track.

Nancy Renault

Citizens for Proper Change

Cascade Locks

Tragedy: terrorists won

The "American Tragedy" didn't happen on Sept. 11, 2001; it happened in the days and weeks after, as people reacted. Reacted like the driver of a car stung by a wasp, panicking and waving arms around until the car ran off the road.

The terrorists won. They didn't win when they hit the towers; they won when we ran the country off the road. That is the ONLY way terrorists can win: by causing a self-destructive reaction.

Four thousand dead? Forty thousand die in car accidents every year. In terms of loss of life and monetary damage, the Twin Towers attack was not a big thing. It was merely obvious. It was a spectacle put on by a savage and evil advertisement specialist - bin Laden.

Why did we fall for his ad? Every time we mention it we are saying to potential terrorists, "If you attack us, you will be heard. You will be spoken of for years. All you need to do to wreck us is give us a tiny sting."

Adrian E. Fields

Hood River

Idling wastes fuel, too

I would like to add to Beth McCullough's letter (Don't Pollute, Sept 10): Not only does idling pollute, but also it's wasting fuel.

With rising fuel costs, turning off your car while you're in line at the local drive-through bank, coffee shop, fast food place or waiting to pick up your kids from school increases your fuel expenses, too.

Linda Short

Hood River

Why did

USFS wait?

I am still wondering why the Forest Department decided to have a "wait and see" approach to the Dollar Lake Fire. What, or "who," would be the benefit from such inaction?

Will this be used as an "enabler" for logging operations to harvest thousands of acres in Mt. Hood National Forest which would otherwise be inaccessible? Will we continue to allow clear-cutting here in this highly sensitive area?

We probably would not have a fire like this if hot-dry winds were not blowing from the clear-cut areas through the remaining forested areas. We also would not have such devastating floods and erosion or a huge Hood River delta which has nearly choked off the Columbia River.

How long will we "wait and see" while our local environment is destroyed before our eyes and becomes deadly?

Robert MacFarland

Hood River

Know your Constitution

Meditation for Saturday, 17 Sept., 2011. On this day in 1787, 39 delegates signed the U.S. Constitution in Philadelphia:

To fellow citizens, all - voters, abstainers and all those who can't qualify for that esteemed privilege and duty because of one regulation or another:

Don't just remember what you think is in that document as it evolved throughout our short history as a nation. Read it and the stories of those who dared to create and amend it. Then you'll have material worthy of cogitation and possibly further action.

Gloria Krantz of Dee

Hood River

How will

you vote?

Tuesday the 20th the citizens of Cascade Locks will decide whether they believe their current city council has acted appropriately and met their standards for moral and ethical behavior, and performed to their expectations.

I ask them to consider: Is your fire department operational; how about your EMS; are the mutual aid agreements still in force; were they when this council was seated?

Did your city council go through excessive money for attorney's fees and are they continuing to do so? Did the mayor authorize and the city pay $650 for a second auditor's report to skew the budget process in order to fire your award-winning fire chief?

Did your fire/EMS volunteers leave on this council's watch? What human resource violations occurred; will they lead to lawsuits? Has our city lost key valuable employees? Will the former city administrator the council hired file suit against them as he has threatened?

Will our former fire chief file suit against the city and some of the council personally? Have city officials knowingly committed building code violations, denying the city potentially thousands of dollars as asserted by a citizen?